


Why Did You Do It

by calie15



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Gunshot Wounds, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2720630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calie15/pseuds/calie15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Why did you do it<br/>Bucky goes off in the middle of a mission and Natasha want to know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Did You Do It

Natasha watched the footage, trying to find the one thing that went wrong, the one thing that made Bucky Barnes momentarily forget the mission. Something wasn’t right, and the one thing they couldn’t risk was the former Winter Solider having his own agenda. When you have a man in charge of carrying out some of the most important and dangerous missions you have to trust that he will follow through.

He did follow through, but not like he was supposed to.

So all day Natasha combed through the footage and audio she could gather.

Finally, she found it. She slowed the footage down, watched as he stood from his crouched position and lowered his weapon. At that moment she wished she could have seen his face. 

Natasha glanced at the time stamp and quickly began searching through the audio. There had been multiple teams that day, carrying out their own missions at the HYDRA base. Therefore there were multiple conversations to go through.

Eventually, she found the one. It had quickly tied into the Bucky’s feed, where it wasn’t supposed to be in the first place. Overriding SHIELD programming wasn’t any easy thing to accomplish. Natasha pulled up the feed and started it.

“She’s been shot,” said an unknown male voice.

“Is she safe?” Bucky asked.

“Stable,” said the shaky male voice, “but we’re trapped and still under heavy fire.”

“I’m on my way.”

Natasha paused the feed and quickly did a voice recognition of the other man. It took only seconds for the computer to pull up the file fore Agent Leopold Fitz, one of SHIELD’s most prominent engineers. That explained why he had no trouble breaking into Bucky’s feed.

Natasha pulled up the other members of the team Agent Fitz had been with that day. Some hadn’t made it. Natasha read through his debrief. They’d been attacked by surprise and not prepared. No one had predicted they would run into trouble, which explained the lack of field agents and the death count. It was when he got to his description of Agent Simmons taking a bullet to the leg that she stopped.

The rest was easy to figure out. Agent Jemma Simmons, genius biochemist, was also one of SHIELD’s brightest and also a team mate to Agent Fitz. They’d gone through school together and worked together for years. If Agent Fitz was going to do something he shouldn’t have he would have done it for her, that was clear.

The bigger question was why Bucky do something he shouldn’t have. A quick comparison of Bucky’s and Agent Simmons’ assignments and missions revealed very little except that they both lived in D.C, as most SHIELD agents did.

Natasha pulled up the image of Bucky standing there, gun lowered, and hit play. He turned quickly and retreated. That’s when Natasha paused it again. That’s where she saw a brief glimpse of his face. It was slightly blurry, but everyone was familiar was the brutal, angry look of Bucky Barnes.

With a frown Natasha grabbed her phone and typed a quick message to the same man. ‘I need you to come in.’  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Is this about last week,” Bucky asked as he pushed open the door. ”I told you to drop it, my mission was completed.”

Natasha said nothing and aimed the remote at the screen. There again was Bucky, kneeling. She played it for him until he turned, then she paused. “Why did you do that?”

He didn’t say anything, he just stared at the image.

“Bucky?” Hard eyes looked at her, almost threatening. “Fine.” Next she pulled up the audio of the brief conversation, played it, and waited. Still he said nothing and stared at the screen. Natasha fought down an urge to lash out at him and took a step in front of him, ready to face off. “Well, let me tell you why you did it. Agent Fitz,” Natasha aimed the remote at the screen and pulled up the man’s image, “is smart enough to break into your feed, and he did just that. He also seems to have a very strong friendship with this woman, “ Natasha pulled up the next image of Agent Simmons, “Agent Simmons. Agent Fitz’s report states that Agent Simmons took a bullet to the leg. It conveniently leaves out any mention of you.” Natasha threw the remote to the table, leaving the woman’s image on the screen and turned to Bucky. “So either you come clean or I go to Agent Simmons myself and get the truth out of her.”

It was then that the truth was clear. Bucky turned to face her, that murderous glare now focused on her. Natasha sighed though and looked up at him sadly. “What have you done Bucky?”

“We’re done here,” he said and turned.

“You can’t fall in love with people Bucky.” He stopped, his back to her. “It doesn’t end well. Not for people like us.”

Bucky turned. “Don’t lecture me on things I’m already aware of,” he snapped angrily, and then started to turn again.

“Then walk away,” she said quickly.

“I can’t!” He exclaimed and spun around again. He took steps to close the distance and glared. “Don’t tell me to fucking walk away. Don’t you think I tried.”

“She’s going to get hurt.”

“She would have gotten hurt if I had walked away,” he shot back.

Natasha didn’t argue against the truth of his words. “True, but you disobeyed orders.”

“I’m fucking tired of being everyone’s machine,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ll use my skills to help SHIELD, to try and make amends for the innocent lives I took, but no one is going to control me anymore. No one.”

“I’m not trying to control you,” Natasha said, unafraid of his anger. “I’m trying to warn you that she is going to get hurt. A scientist Bucky? I won’t deny that she has had her share of danger, but-.”

“Don’t,” Bucky said and shook his head. “I have a lot of respect for you Natasha,” he began, this time more calmly, “but don’t. I’ve already been down this road, I’ve said the same things to myself. And in the end I realized she’s probably safer with me then not, and I don’t have the will to stay away.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bucky opened the door and immediately felt himself begin to relax. He knew as soon as he had received Natasha’s text he should have not gone in.

“Oh finally. You leave me here battered and broken and unable to fend for myself. I may have to rethink this arrangement. Not to mention I’m wasting away without food.”

Bucky walked into the living room, his eyebrow ticking up in an amused fashion. Jemma was where he’d left her, sprawled lazily on the sofa, one leg propped up with a pillow. He glanced at the bandage around her thigh and back up at her face to see her smile.

“You brought me food, I suppose I can forgive you.”

“How generous of you,” he drawled, walked forward to set the bag on the table, and sat in the empty spot on the sofa, near her feet. Even though he was relieved to be back he was still troubled.

“What is it?”

When Bucky looked over at her the light hearted look on Jemma’s face was gone and replaced with concern. He thought to try and lie and brush it off, but that wouldn’t do. Instead he sighed. “Natasha finally put it all together. She knows why I broke protocol last week.” The concern only deepened on her face.

“What does that mean?” Jemma asked, worry in her voice.

“Nothing,” he said. “All it means is that she thinks it’s a really bad idea and at the worst I could get reprimanded for disobeying order, but they can kiss my ass, because we all know they aren’t getting rid of their favorite toy.”

“Bucky,” Jemma began and pushed herself to sit up more, wincing as she did so, “don’t talk like that.”

“And you don’t do that,” he said and stood, moving to walk around and help her sit up. Again he was reminded of the scene he came upon after fighting through the enemy to get to her. She had been propped against a wall, leg stretched out and wrapped in a makeshift bandage, but there had been blood everywhere. If he hadn’t been there he knew they would have never made it out alive. Natasha and everyone could take their opinion and shove it.

Jemma still stared up at him worried, and Bucky pushed aside his anger. The last thing he wanted to do was make things worse, especially considering what she had already been through. “It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

Bucky squatted at the side of the sofa so that they were at the same eye level. “Yes. I’m a little annoyed, but you already know that’s nothing new. I’ll get over it. And we both know there is nothing they can do to stop us. There is no rule against it. The problem isn’t us, the problem is who I am.”

“Even you deserve to be happy,” she said softly and looked at him with a small smile.

That was the whole point he had realized in the end. When he fought against what was growing between them it was Jemma that forced him to realize that there was nothing wrong with him being happy and being with someone he cared for. 

Bucky stood, but bent over, hand grasping the back of the couch, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Let’s get you food, I wouldn’t want you to waste away,” he said and grabbed the food and walked to the kitchen. Behind him Jemma made a show of laughing sarcastically.

“If anything, by the end of this I’ll be ten pounds heavier. Your propensity for take out is doing nothing for my figure.”

“Your figure is fine,” he said as he walked into the kitchen. “And if you’re that worried about it I’m sure we can come up with multiple ways for you to get exercise.”

“It isn’t fair to tease a crippled woman with bedroom activities Agent Barnes.” 

He smirked to himself, but didn’t respond. He heard her sigh dramatically from the living room, as she had been doing often over the past few days. While they were both very different, that was one way they were similar, neither liked to be immobile. Jemma needed to move, she had to much energy in her body to be forced to stay in one spot. She’d lamented multiple times lately that she wished she could be back in her lab.

When he entered the room, her plate in hand, she smiled up at him.

“You know Bucky, if this spy assassin business doesn’t work out for you I believe you’d make a great nurse.”

As she reached for the plate he pulled it back. “I’m not sure the invalid should be making fun of her care taker when he is holding her food.”

“My sincere apologies, I promise I won’t be cheeky anymore.”

That Bucky didn’t believe for a minute, but he handed over the plate with a raised eyebrow and went back to the kitchen.

“Be quick about it too Bucky,” Jemma called to him, “if you won’t let me walk then you need to go find a movie for me to watch. There is absolutely nothing decent on this television.”

He couldn’t help but roll his eyes at her, even though she couldn’t see him. Jemma was a terrible patient. She had tried to do to much in the beginning, and after Bucky had firmly told her to stop he was pretty sure she had made it her mission to make his life hell.

It didn’t matter though. He’d rather have her there with him then not at all.

Even as she drove him crazy with fixing her pillow, making him find a movie, complaining about him not letter her get up, needing her phone charger, wanting something to drink as soon as he sat down, he found that the tension and anger were already gone. Even when Jemma was driving him crazy she made him happy.


End file.
